Real-time biological signal monitoring system using radio communication network

ABSTRACT

A real-time biological signal monitoring system using a radio communication network includes a portable biological signal hold apparatus (100) attached to the body of a patient for measuring biological signal data, judging whether or not the measured biological signal data is normal, and transmitting abnormal biological signal data via an aerial radio communication network whenever it is judged as an abnormal state, and a biological signal monitoring server apparatus (300) for diagnosing the biological signal data for which an abnormality is recognized from the biological signal hold apparatus (100) via the aerial radio communication network and transmitting a resultant prescription message to the biological signal hold apparatus. The biological signal monitoring system provides an effect capable of monitoring and providing an emergency treatment on a real-time basis via a radio communication network. Also, an expensive storage unit is not used to record the biological signal data and an additional connection apparatus is not required to transmit data at high speed, resulting in providing a more economical apparatus compared with the conventional biological signal remote measuring apparatus.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a biological signal monitoring system,and more particularly, to a real-time biological signal monitoringsystem using a radio communication network in which biological signaldata is checked using a portable biological signal hold apparatus, thechecked data is transmitted to a monitoring center via an aerial radiocommunication network when it is judged as abnormality, and then themonitoring center transmits diagnosis and prescription information tothe biological signal hold apparatus in response thereto.

BACKGROUND ART

A technique of measuring biological signals at a remote distance isrecently under development according to the technological advancement ofa medical science. A recent biological signal remote measuring methodwhich is widely used is an electrocardiogram transmission method. Thereare monitors for a Holter electrocardiogram, a resting electrocardiogramand a stress electrocardiogram as electrocardiogram monitoringapparatuses used for diagnosing heart disease and the state of theheart.

Taking an electrocardiogram as an example, problems of conventional artwill be briefly described below. Generally, an electrocardiograph canobserve the waveforms of an electrocardiogram for a short time. However,the waveforms of an electrocardiogram should be continuously recordedfor a long time and the recorded data should be analyzed to observeheart abnormality such as an irregular pulse which is generatedintermittently. For this purpose, a Holter electrocardiogram apparatushas been developed. Recently, it is a tendency that the Holterelectrocardiogram apparatus is put on for about one day to recorddetected electrocardiogram data on a cassette tape or a semiconductorstorage unit for more than 24 hours and to analyze the recorded data.However, it takes much time to analyze the recorded data, andparticularly much more time to analyze a more technological analysis.

For this reason, the heart disease of a patient does not measured inreal-time. As a result, when a patient is in an emergency situation, anemergency treatment cannot be taken immediately. Also, since a terminalof the Holter electrocardiogram apparatus stores data corresponding tothe quantity of more than 24 hours, an expensive storage unit such as amemory card is needed and a separate connection apparatus is needed totransmit the data at high speed. As a result, an equipment cost rises.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

To solve the above problems, it is an object of the present invention toprovide a real-time biological signal monitoring system using a radiocommunication network to enable diagnosis and prevention with respect tothe disease of a patient in which a biological signal hold apparatus isput on by a patent and then an electrocardiogram or various kinds ofbiological signal data are continuously checked to transmit the checkeddata to a biological signal monitoring server apparatus in a hospital ona real-time basis via a radio communication network only when it isjudged as an abnormality condition, within the boundary where anactivity area of the patient is not limited, and a biological signalmonitoring center of the hospital transmits diagnosis and prescriptionto the biological signal hold apparatus on a real-time basis.

To accomplish the above object of the present invention, there isprovided a biological signal monitoring system using a radiocommunication network comprising:

a portable biological signal hold apparatus attached to the body of apatient for measuring biological signal data, judging whether or not themeasured biological signal data indicates an abnormality, andtransmitting the biological signal data indicating the abnormality viaan aerial radio communication network whenever it is judged as anabnormal state;

a biological signal monitoring server apparatus for diagnosing thebiological signal data with which an abnormality is recognized from thebiological signal hold apparatus via the aerial radio communicationnetwork and transmitting a resultant prescription message to thebiological signal hold apparatus; and

a relay station for playing a role of relaying abnormal biologicalsignal data transmitted from the biological signal hold apparatus to thebiological signal monitoring server apparatus in a hospital.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a biological signal monitoringsystem including a portable biological signal hold apparatus, abiological signal monitoring server apparatus for monitoring biologicalsignal data transmitted from the biological signal hold apparatus and aradio relay station installed between the biological signal holdapparatus and the biological signal monitoring server apparatus,according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the portable biological signal holdapparatus of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the biological signal monitoringserver apparatus of FIG. 1.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described belowwith reference to the accompanying drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1, a biological signal monitoring system according toa preferred embodiment of the present invention includes a portablebiological signal hold apparatus 100, and a biological signal monitoringserver apparatus 300 for monitoring biological signal data transmittedfrom the biological signal hold apparatus and a relay station 200installed between the biological signal hold apparatus 100 and thebiological signal monitoring server apparatus 300. The portablebiological signal hold apparatus 100 checks biological signal data byattaching a plurality of electrodes to the body of a patient. Thebiological signal hold apparatus 100 is constructed so that biologicalsignal data is continuously checked and the biological signal dataindicating an abnormality is transmitted to a radio relay station 200via an internal radio modem (not shown) only when there is an abnormalsituation. The radio relay station 200 transfers the biological signaldata supplied from the biological signal hold apparatus 100 to thebiological signal monitoring server apparatus 300 in a hospital. Thebiological signal monitoring server apparatus 300 monitors the receivedbiological signal data and transmits the treatment and emergencyprescription corresponding to the biological signal data indicating anabnormality to the biological signal hold apparatus 100.

FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram showing the portable biologicalsignal hold apparatus 100 attached to the body of a patient, forchecking whether or not there is an abnormality in the body of thepatient. The biological signal hold apparatus 100 includes a biologicalsignal data measuring unit 20, attached to the body of the patient, forsensing a minute electrical signal generated during activity of eachorgan of the human body. The biological signal hold apparatus 100 alsoincludes a first key input unit 10 for manually applying a signalindicating an abnormality to the biological signal monitoring serverapparatus 300 in a hospital when a patient feels an abnormality in hisor her body although the biological signal data measuring unit 20 doesnot measure the abnormality of the body. A biological signal analysisunit 30 is connected to receive biological signal data measured in thebiological signal data measuring unit 20. The biological signal analysisunit 30 is constructed so that it receives a key signal which ismanually input from the key input unit 10 by the patient and transmitsthe received key signal to the relay station 200 via a radio modem 40. Amain memory 31 in the biological signal analysis unit 30 includes a ROMwhich stores a program for checking the occurrence of an abnormality ofthe patient and a RAM for temporarily storing the biological signal databetween several minutes before or after the occurrence of theabnormality of the living body is checked. The biological signal dataanalysis unit 30 may also further include an auxiliary memory 33 forstoring the biological signal data for a long time. Also, the biologicalsignal hold apparatus 100 includes a display unit 50, so that it candisplay an emergency treatment, for example, a statement such as"Emergency, Come to the hospital" which is transmitted from thebiological signal monitoring server apparatus 300 in the hospital.

Now, the biological signal hold apparatus 100 attached to the body ofthe patient to check the biological signal data will be described inmore detail.

The biological signal data measuring unit 20 includes an electrodeportion 21 having a predetermined number of electrodes 21 attached tothe body of the patient to sense an electrical signal of the human body.In this embodiment, the electrode portion 21 has five electrodes one ofwhich is grounded and the others of which are used for measuring thedifference between electric potentials of each of two pairs of theelectrodes. The two electric potential differences can be finallyobtained in an analog signal processor 23. The biological signal data isconverted into digital data in an analog-to-digital converter 25. Adigital signal processor 27 processes the received digital biologicalsignal data and outputs the processed result to a first controller 35 inthe biological signal analysis unit 30. The first controller 35 checkswhether or not the body of the patient is abnormal using the receivedbiological signal data through execution of the program stored in themain memory 31. Here, the first controller 35 stores biological signaldata which indicates that the body of the patient is in a normalcondition and becomes a reference for judging the occurrence of theabnormality in the human body using the biological signal data. Thefirst controller 35 checks the biological signal data which issuccessively input from the biological signal data measuring unit 20,compares the biological signal data with predetermined biological signaldata indicating a normality, and then outputs a command, that is, a callcontrol signal for connection to the biological signal monitoring serverapparatus 300 in the hospital via the radio communication network, tothe radio modem 35 if it is checked as the occurrence of an abnormality.Also, the first controller 35 temporarily stores the preceding orfollowing data of the abnormality-checked biological signal data in themain memory 31 for several minutes. In this embodiment, the preceding orfollowing data of the abnormality-checked biological signal data isstored in the main memory 31 for eight seconds. If the biological signalmonitoring system is connected to the radio communication network, thedata stored in the main memory 31 is transmitted to the hospitalbiological signal monitoring server apparatus 300 via the radio modem 40and a radio relay station 200.

The biological signal monitoring server apparatus 300 in a hospital isconnected to a communication control unit CCU (not shown) in thehospital, and is constituted so that the biological signal datatransmitted from each biological signal hold apparatus 100 which isattached to each patient can be continuously monitored.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the biological signal monitoringserver apparatus 300 of FIG. 1, which is installed in a hospital. Thebiological signal monitoring server apparatus 300 includes a datacommunicator 64 for transmitting and receiving with respect to thebiological signal hold apparatus 100. Moreover, the biological signalmonitoring server apparatus 300 includes an alarm generator 67 forgenerating an alarm if the biological signal hold apparatus 100 isconnected with the data communicator 64 via the radio communicationnetwork to enable data communication. Also, the biological signalmonitoring server apparatus 300 includes a second display unit 65 todisplay biological signal data of a patient transmitted from thebiological signal hold apparatus 100 and a printer output portion 66 foroutputting the displayed biological signal data. Also, in the biologicalsignal monitoring server apparatus 300, a second key input unit 60 isconstructed so that a treatment and prescription message can be input tothe biological signal hold apparatus 100 according to a monitoringresult of receiving biological signal data of a patient displayed in asecond display unit 65 and diagnosing the patient using the biologicalsignal data. A second controller 63 receives data applied from the datacommunicator 64 and stores the received data in a memory unit 61. Also,the second controller 63 controls the second display unit 65 and theprinter output portion 66. The biological signal monitoring serverapparatus 300 establish a patient control database portion 62 in orderto control a number of patients.

Now, the operation of the biological signal monitoring server apparatus300 which receives the biological signal data of the patient transmittedfrom the biological signal hold apparatus 100 via the radiocommunication network, diagnoses the patient using the biological signaldata, and transmits a treatment and emergency prescription message tothe biological signal hold apparatus 100, will be described in moredetail.

If the biological signal hold apparatus 100 is connected to the datacommunicator 64 via the radio communication network to enable datacommunication, the alarm generator 67 generates an alarm notifying thatthe former is connected to the latter, which enables a monitoringpersonnel such as a doctor or a nurse to recognize the alarm. The secondcontroller 63 instructs the memory unit 61 to store the biologicalsignal data indicating an abnormality of a patient received via the datacommunicator 64, and outputs a control signal to be displayed in thesecond display unit 65. The monitoring personnel monitors the biologicalsignal data of the patient displayed in the second display unit 65 andinputs a treatment and emergency prescription message via the second keyinput unit 60. Also, the monitoring personnel operates the second keyinput unit 60 so that the input message is displayed in the seconddisplay unit 65. The second controller 63 receives the input message andoutputs a control signal for allowing the input message to betransmitted to the radio modem 40 in the biological signal holdapparatus 100 attached to the patient via the data communicator 64.Also, the second controller 63 outputs a control signal to the printeroutput portion 66 to print the biological signal data displayed in thesecond display unit 65. Also, the second controller 63 outputs a controlsignal to the patient control database portion 62 to control a number ofpatients, and reads and displays the stored patient records ifnecessary.

As described above, the present invention can monitor patients usingbiological signals, for example, an electrocardiogram, a blood pressure,a brain wave, a blood sugar, which are generated from each organ of thehuman body, and can see where a patient in an emergency situation isusing a global positioning system (GPS) of a satellite.

Thus, the present invention provides a real-time biological signalmonitoring system using a radio communication network in whichbiological signal data is checked using a portable biological signalhold apparatus, the checked data is transmitted to a monitoring centervia an aerial radio communication network when it is judged asabnormality, and then the monitoring center transmits diagnosis andprescription information to the biological signal hold apparatus inresponse thereto. Accordingly, the present invention provides an effectcapable of monitoring and providing an emergency treatment on areal-time basis in a remote monitoring center. Also, the presentinvention transmits a signal to a monitoring center only when it isjudged as the occurrence of an abnormality without using an expensivestorage unit, which can allow a chronic patient to be monitoredordinarily, resulting in providing a more economical apparatus comparedwith the conventional biological signal remote measuring apparatus.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

The present invention can be used in a portable medical apparatus formeasuring biological signal data of a patient, diagnosing, prescribingand treating illness of the patient according to the measured biologicalsignal data. Also, the present invention can be used to check where apatient is positioned using a GPS.

What is claimed is:
 1. A real-time biological signal monitoring systemusing a radio communication network comprising:a portable biologicalsignal hold apparatus (100) adapted to be attached to the body of apatient for measuring biological signal data, judging whether or not themeasured biological signal data indicates a normal condition of thebody, and transmitting biological signal data indicating an abnormalityvia the radio communication network whenever it is judged as an abnormalstate; a biological signal monitoring server apparatus (300) fordiagnosing the biological signal data with which an abnormality isrecognized from the biological signal hold apparatus (100) via the radiocommunication network and transmitting a resultant prescription messageto the biological signal hold apparatus (100); and a relay station (200)for playing a role of relaying abnormal biological signal datatransmitted from the biological signal hold apparatus (100) to thebiological signal monitoring server apparatus (300) in a hospital. 2.The real-time biological signal monitoring system using the radiocommunication network according to claim 1, wherein said portablebiological signal hold apparatus (100) comprises:a biological signaldata measuring unit (20) attached to the body of the patient for sensinga minute electrical signal generated during the activity of each organof the body to display the sensed electrical signal into biologicalsignal data; a biological signal data analysis unit (30) for storingbiological signal data indicating a normality in advance, and diagnosingan abnormality using the biological signal data applied from saidbiological signal data measuring unit (20) on the basis of the normalbiological signal data; a radio modem (40) connected to said radiocommunication network for transmitting the biological signal data tosaid biological signal monitoring server apparatus (300) if saidbiological signal analysis unit (30) finds out biological signal dataindicating an abnormality; and a display unit (50) for displaying aprescription message transmitted from said biological signal monitoringserver apparatus (300).
 3. The real-time biological signal monitoringsystem using the radio communication network according to claim 2,wherein said portable biological signal hold apparatus (100) furthercomprises a first key input unit (10) which can manually input a signalindicating an abnormality to said biological signal monitoring serverapparatus.
 4. The real-time biological signal monitoring system usingthe radio communication network according to claim 2, wherein saidbiological signal data measuring unit (20) comprises:electrode means(21) having a predetermined number of electrodes each of which isattached to the body of the patient, for sensing an electrical signal ofthe body; an analog signal processor (23) for amplifying the electricalsignal sensed in said electrode means (21) and processing the amplifiedsignal; an analog-to-digital converter (25) for converting the analogsignal processed biological signal data into a digital signal; and adigital signal processor (27) for processing the digital convertedbiological signal data and outputting the processed data to saidbiological signal data analysis unit (30).
 5. The real-time biologicalsignal monitoring system using the radio communication network accordingto claim 2, wherein said biological signal data analysis (30) unitcomprises:a first controller (35) which stores biological signal dataindicating a normality in advance, receives the measured biologicalsignal data from said biological signal data measuring unit, checkswhether the received biological signal data indicates an abnormalitybased on the prestored biological signal data, and outputs a controlsignal to said radio modem (40) to perform a radio communicationwhenever the biological signal data indicates the abnormality; and amain memory (31) for temporarily storing as a many biological signaldata as several minutes preceding or following the biological signaldata indicating the abnormality, for a predetermined length of time. 6.The real-time biological signal monitoring system using the radiocommunication network according to claim 5, wherein said biologicalsignal data analysis unit (30) further comprises an auxiliary memory(33) for storing the biological signal data for a long time.
 7. Thereal-time biological signal monitoring system using the radiocommunication network according to claim 1, wherein said biologicalsignal monitoring server apparatus (300) comprises:a data communicationportion (64) connected to said biological signal hold apparatus (100)via the radio communication network to enable data transmission andreception; a second display unit (65) for displaying the abnormalityusing the biological signal data received via said data communicationportion (64); a second key input unit (60) for inputting a prescriptionmessage corresponding to a diagnostic result obtained by monitoring thebiological signal data indicating the abnormality displayed in saidsecond display unit (65) and diagnosing the state of the patient; amemory unit (61) for storing received biological signal data indicatingthe abnormality which is transmitted via said data communication portion(64); and a second controller (63) for outputting a radio communicationcontrol signal to said data communication portion (64), in order totransmit the prescription message to said biological signal holdapparatus (100).
 8. The real-time biological signal monitoring systemusing the radio communication network according to claim 7, furthercomprising an alarm generator (67) for generating an alarm whenever thebiological signal data received from said data communication portion(64) is applied thereto.
 9. The real-time biological signal monitoringsystem using the radio communication network according to claim 7,further comprising a printer output portion (66) for printing thebiological signal data indicating the abnormality displayed in saidsecond display unit (65).
 10. The real-time biological signal monitoringsystem using the radio communication network according to claim 7,further comprising a patient control database portion (62) forcollecting the biological signal data of each patient stored in saidmemory unit (61) and controlling biological signal data with respect toa number of patients.
 11. A real-time biological signal monitoringsystem using the radio communication network according to claim 1,comprising, in combination, said portable biological signal holdapparatus (100), biological signal monitoring server apparatus (300),relay station (200) and radio communication network.
 12. A real-timebiological signal monitoring system using a radio communication networkcomprising:a portable biological signal hold apparatus (100) adapted tobe attached to the body of a patient for measuring biological signaldata, judging whether or not the measured biological signal indicates anormal condition of the body, and transmitting biological signal dataindicating an abnormality via the radio communication network wheneverit is judged as an abnormal state; a biological signal monitoring serverapparatus (300) for diagnosing the biological signal data with which anabnormality is recognized from the biological signal hold apparatus(100) via the radio communication network and transmitting a resultantprescription message to the biological signal hold apparatus (100); anda relay station (200) for playing a role of relaying abnormal biologicalsignal data transmitted from the biological signal hold apparatus (100)to the biological signal monitoring server apparatus (300) in ahospital; whereinsaid portable biological hold apparatus (100)comprises, in a single unit: a biological signal data measuring unit(20) attached to the body of the patient for sensing a minute electricalsignal generated during the activity of each organ of the body todisplay the sensed electrical signal into biological signal data; abiological signal data analysis unit (30) for storing biological signaldata indicating a normality in advance, and diagnosing an abnormalityusing the biological signal data applied from said biological signaldata measuring unit (20) on the basis of the normal biological signaldata; a radio modem (40) connected to said radio communication networkfor transmitting the biological signal data to said biological signalmonitoring server apparatus (300) if said biological signal analysisunit (30) finds out biological signal data indicating an abnormality;and a display unit (50) for displaying a prescription messagetransmitted from said biological signal monitoring server apparatus(300).
 13. The real-time biological signal monitoring system using theradio communication network according to claim 12, wherein said portablebiological signal hold apparatus (100) further comprises, in said singleunit, a first key input unit (10) which can manually input a signalindicating an abnormality to said biological signal monitoring serverapparatus (300).